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22
DEATHS OF INFANTS.
About one-fifth (19.2 per cent.) of the total deaths
at all ages were those of infants in the first year of
life ; these numbered 375 and give an infantile death
rate of 96 per thousand births. This is a very considerable
decrease on the figure for 1911, which was
148. The general Metropolitan rate has also fallen to
90 as against 128 for the previous year. An inspection
of the accompanying table of special causes of infantile
deaths will demonstrate the fact that, though there has
been an inprovernent all round the great diminution of
mortality was due to the small number of deaths from
infantile diarrhoea, a disease which was epidemic in the
autumn of 1911 and almost absent in 1912; convulsions
and marasmus, frequent results of severe diarrhoea, also
show a marked decrease; and although the cold wet
summer might have been expected to cause many
deaths from respiratory diseases, the table shows a
decrease of nineteen. The only cause, in fact, from
which an increase is shown is suffocation, and this
notwithstanding the urgent injunctions given to mothers
by our woman Inspector. Miss Hammond tells me she
always withholds such small benefits as are at her
disposal in those cases where the infant is permitted to
occupy the parents' bed, until this pernicious practice
is discontinued.
Seven infants died from Tubercular Meningitis,
four from Tabes Mesenterica and eight from other forms
of tuberculosis, a total of nineteen, which gives a
mortality of 4.9, a figure identical with that of the
previous year.